The Exchange Student
by chocoholly
Summary: I'll come up with a better title later. Dumbledore is sick of the hatred between Severus and James and decides to solve it by making them live with each other over the summer holidays marauders 5th year. AU. no slash.
1. Chapter 1

I am home sick today, so I thought I might as well put pen to paper and write out the first installment of the story that has been bugging me for a while. This is the first fanfic I have written so be kind (plus I am sick!).

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with excitement. Seated around his desk were the renown fifth year trouble makers, Severus Snape and James Potter. Dumbledore had watched the hatred between them grow to ridiculous proportions, far beyond the usual house rivalries. He felt that the opportune moment had now come to finally put an end to their enmity.

Andrew and Elizabeth Potter were also present, looking slightly apprehensive. Dumbledore offered them a lemon drop.

"I have summoned you all here to notify you that have had the tremendous luck to be selected for a holiday exchange program! Congratulations!"

Severus and James looked skeptical. Dumbledore continued.

"First James will accompany Severus first during the summer holidays, and then through the use of an ingenious little creation called a 'time-turner', you both will be able to return to the start of the holidays so that James can have his turn hosting Severus. Doesn't that sound like fun!"

All heads turned to Dumbledore in shock and horror. James and Severus were the first to react.

"There is NO WAY you can make me spend my summer with Snivellus! I refuse!"

"Preposterous! Impossible! Have you completely forgotten about my father?!"

Mrs Potter seemed to recover from her shock, but her husband was a little more vocal.

"Don't we have any say in this? What if he kills us in our sleep?! What if he attacks James?!"

Dumbledore smiled secretively.

"I'm sure you'll find that all your worries are unfounded."

To Be Continued


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm afraid I won't be able to let you continue on to 6th year while you two disrupt the peace in this school with your fighting."

Dumbledore looked over to top of his spectacles and smiled at the two boys sulking before him. "Now to work out the finer details. Severus's house is in a completely muggle area, therefore we will have to devise a suitable cover story for you, James. Severus, your father is expecting a French muggle exchange student. That particular language sprang to mind because I know both of you are familiar with it. After all, James, you live in a French village. Now all you need is a French accent! An all that takes is a simple voice-modulation charm."

"How perfectly tedious!" Drawled James.

Severus smirked, "And it's going to get worse. My tedious, muggle father doesn't approve of wizards; so you will have to keep the exchange student charade going 24/7!"

James looked horrified and swore in a way that made Dumbledore frown disapprovingly.

"You must be lying! Why would you be going to Hogwarts if your dad didn't approve of magic?"

Severus's evil grin widened. "Actually, he doesn't know about Hogwarts. If you tell him I will have to kill you. When a Hogwarts term finishes, I use a time turner to complete a term at the local muggle school. Father does not suspect a thing!

James rolled his eyes. Snape was such a weirdo.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello! Thank you to my 4 lovely reviewers! I hope you haven't given up on me; I have been too busy with real life to even think about this story! Sorry to Mysid, your idea is excellent, but this is the idea that has been running through my head for a while so I'd like to make Snape go to muggle school. I'm sure Dumbledore would be able to sort out the time turner issues, and my personal theory is that when you go back in time with the time turner, your body returns to the age/state that it was at that time. You would still retain all your knowledge but you would appear the correct age for that time. Anyway... time turners are cool:) It would give me many warm fuzzies if you wanted to write a fanfic of my fanfic! Feel free to use any ideas of mine and make them your own! (you could even copy and paste anything you wanted to keep). I'm sure you would be able to do a much better job of it than I would. That also goes for anyone else by the way.

I read an essay that Spinner's End is probably in Manchester. I have never been to Europe and I don't know about the public transport system there (let alone 20 or so years ago when this story is set). I am going to assume that you can/could catch a train to Manchester and it would take about 3 hours from Kings Cross. There was no mention of train stations in Half Blood Prince, so then Snape and Potter are going to take a short bus trip (20min or so) to somewhere near the house. As you can imagine, this does not make James very happy.

After the exceptionally tedious train ride on the Hogwarts Express, the last thing James Potter wanted to do was get on another train for an equally tedious journey to whatever god-forsaken muggle town Snape lived in. All he wanted was a large steak sandwich with chips and gravy, a portkey to his family's summer home and Lily Evans (who had refused to come with him on a date for the last 14 consecutive Hogsmeade weekends – as Sirius reminded him regularly).

The train carriages were similar in design to those of the Hogwarts express, but considerably smellier. James pulled out his newly transfigured trunk and scowled. It now appeared to look like a smart muggle suitcase filled with inconspicuous muggle belongings. Snape's trunk now resembled a grubby, muggle-style backpack, complete with zippered compartments and a sports logo. Snape himself was reading a muggle novel and ignoring his guest completely. James looked out the window into the muggle world. He was yet to have ever met a muggle (he had, of course, met _muggleborns_ but never any of their non-magical family). The muggle world outside the train window looked very different from the pictures in his muggle studies textbook; James thought perhaps this was because muggles were incapable of cleaning spells.

Three hours later, Snape emerged from the world of muggle literature. James was almost glad; even the company of Snivellus was better than no company at all!


End file.
